God Talk
Like most of my progressive friends, I am firmly committed to the separation of church and state in this country. I really don't care what religion folks in government are; that's their business. I just don't want them using their sectarian beliefs to run the country.
I am, in my own way, a deeply committed Christian. I suppose that fact informs my behavior in various ways, but I have plenty of friends who are neither Christian, nor believers, who maintain pretty solid moral value systems and who live by them quite successfully. Those friends and I agree on all sorts of things. Killing is bad. Lying and cheating is bad. Helping those who need help (family, friends, strangers) is good. Making things better than when we found them is good.
Folks who talk a great deal about how close they are to God, how saved they are, and how much better off I would be if I just followed their system make me nervous, except when they are government officials. Then they scare me half to death. President Bush and his minions scare me half to death.
That's why I thoroughly appreciated this op-ed piece from Pak Tribune (out of Pakistan).
...the President claims that all peoples worship the same God. He told the visiting leader of Turkey that they both believe in "the Almighty." Answering a British reporter's question about the God of Islam being the same as the God of Christianity, President Bush replied: "I believe we worship the same God." Then, in an October 26, 2004, Good Morning American interview with Charles Gibson, he was asked: "Do we all worship the same God, Christian and Muslim?" His reply: "I think we do."
If true, this means two things. One, President Bush, the Taliban and Bin Laden & Co. all pray to the same God. Two, all the killing and dying is done in His name. The only difference is that George Bush strikes them in God's name and they retaliate in God's name. He invades their countries in God's name, they resist in God's name. He kills in God's name, they die in God's name. George Bush eliminates a few 'terrorists' in God's name, countless more come forward to take their place in God's name. There are more 'terrorists' now fighting America in God's name than ever were at any point in time before.
If his God is different, then his God is unique. His God orders him to kill other Gods' children. Especially, if those children are of a different hue and color and are found in the near vicinity of a liquid called oil. That, to say the least, is being very vengeful.
Next, President Bush's God does not forbid him from lying. That is very disturbing because one hears Gods do not take kindly to liars. Take, for example, the case of Iraq war. God told him to make war on Iraq but forgot to tell him not to tell humongous lies in the process. Had He informed the President that lies don't travel far for the simple fact that they don't have legs, or had He shown the full future to the US President, George Bush would have been saved the equally huge embarrassments of his own September 11 Commission officially acknowledging that Iraq was not involved in the terrorist attacks on America, the US Military giving up the search for the non-existent WMDs and him having to shamefully shift to 'freedom' as the current war cry.
I think the writer has nailed it. I don't know who or what is speaking to George W. Bush, but if it's his God, I want no part of that religion. And if it's not George W. Bush's God, then the man is either delusional or a liar. Neither quality is a particularly good one for a president, and we need to seriously consider removing him from office via whatever legal means available.
It's the moral thing to do.
I am, in my own way, a deeply committed Christian. I suppose that fact informs my behavior in various ways, but I have plenty of friends who are neither Christian, nor believers, who maintain pretty solid moral value systems and who live by them quite successfully. Those friends and I agree on all sorts of things. Killing is bad. Lying and cheating is bad. Helping those who need help (family, friends, strangers) is good. Making things better than when we found them is good.
Folks who talk a great deal about how close they are to God, how saved they are, and how much better off I would be if I just followed their system make me nervous, except when they are government officials. Then they scare me half to death. President Bush and his minions scare me half to death.
That's why I thoroughly appreciated this op-ed piece from Pak Tribune (out of Pakistan).
...the President claims that all peoples worship the same God. He told the visiting leader of Turkey that they both believe in "the Almighty." Answering a British reporter's question about the God of Islam being the same as the God of Christianity, President Bush replied: "I believe we worship the same God." Then, in an October 26, 2004, Good Morning American interview with Charles Gibson, he was asked: "Do we all worship the same God, Christian and Muslim?" His reply: "I think we do."
If true, this means two things. One, President Bush, the Taliban and Bin Laden & Co. all pray to the same God. Two, all the killing and dying is done in His name. The only difference is that George Bush strikes them in God's name and they retaliate in God's name. He invades their countries in God's name, they resist in God's name. He kills in God's name, they die in God's name. George Bush eliminates a few 'terrorists' in God's name, countless more come forward to take their place in God's name. There are more 'terrorists' now fighting America in God's name than ever were at any point in time before.
If his God is different, then his God is unique. His God orders him to kill other Gods' children. Especially, if those children are of a different hue and color and are found in the near vicinity of a liquid called oil. That, to say the least, is being very vengeful.
Next, President Bush's God does not forbid him from lying. That is very disturbing because one hears Gods do not take kindly to liars. Take, for example, the case of Iraq war. God told him to make war on Iraq but forgot to tell him not to tell humongous lies in the process. Had He informed the President that lies don't travel far for the simple fact that they don't have legs, or had He shown the full future to the US President, George Bush would have been saved the equally huge embarrassments of his own September 11 Commission officially acknowledging that Iraq was not involved in the terrorist attacks on America, the US Military giving up the search for the non-existent WMDs and him having to shamefully shift to 'freedom' as the current war cry.
I think the writer has nailed it. I don't know who or what is speaking to George W. Bush, but if it's his God, I want no part of that religion. And if it's not George W. Bush's God, then the man is either delusional or a liar. Neither quality is a particularly good one for a president, and we need to seriously consider removing him from office via whatever legal means available.
It's the moral thing to do.
posted by Diane at 4:19 PM
1 Comments:
I'm a Christian. I know, because I sin every day, and I acknowledge it...with multiple Hail Mary's a day. This, in no way, make me better, but it makes me equal.
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